Exactly 30 years ago today, I ran the first session for my first Star Wars D6 adventure, which was the start of my first Star Wars D6 campaign, "S1". It was the last day of school that year in high school, a Friday. My group and I had already had a session zero in May where we had made the 6 PCs, and the Outlaw Cyborg Engineer had an NPC astromech droid I often let him control. On the night of the first session, one of players had unexpectedly shown up with his little brother in tow asking if he could play too, so I picked the Gambler template and in two minutes we quickly made up a 7th PC before starting the adventure.

As this was still before published adventures started being released, it was an original adventure called "Rebellion!". I don't have or remember a lot of details, but this is the set-up I wrote for it: "Three separate pairs of people individually contact a Rebel recruiting agent who instructs them all to meet a smuggler on a backwater planet who will transport them to an Alliance base." The 7th PC was a friend of the smugglers who also wanted to join so met them there too. The smuggler ship was there but her captain and crew were missing. They told the droid to stay in the hanger near the ship in case the captain or any of the crew returned, and then the PCs went out to find the captain. Having some misadventures they found out that the captain had gotten into some trouble with a local crime lord, and the PC group themselves came into conflict with a mysterious Twi'lek agent of unknown loyalties which lead to the 7 would-be Rebels being captured by the local understaffed Imperial authorities and put in jail. At some point in this story we broke to continue two days later on Sunday where we finished the adventure.

I remember the ending of the adventure a little better. The ship was being impounded and the droid hiding nearby overheard that it was because the ship was believed to be connected to a group of 7 people recently arrested due to suspicion of them being Rebels. So the droid broke into the ship and talked the ship's droids into helping him take off at the opportune time based on the TIE patrol schedule he had figured out from observation while hiding in the hanger. However from the abrupt and unskilled launch from the hanger, the boarding ramp was damaged and would not open, so the only way to get into the ship was the top hatch. The Force PC used the Force to engineer an escape from the jail, and found the ship hovering above them outside. The streets weren't wide enough to land in and there were no open areas nearby. Then a firefight with the PC's jailers broke out and the PCs couldn't get on the ship. The droid comlinked his master saying they didn't have much time before the TIE fighters would come. The ship had a gun turret but it was on the top of the ship and a droid couldn't even angle it down enough to aim in the general direction of the jailers pinning the PCs down. One of the PCs then comlinked the ship and told the droids to reverse the polarity of the repulsorlift and turn the ship upside down. It was successful but it took out a couple of buildings. The ship was a bit more damaged but still flyable and space worthy, but the droids were all damaged when they were knocked around in the maneuver. Then the pirate PC dodged enemy fire, climbed up some wreckage and jumped to the top hatch. He lowered a rope then ran for the gunnery station, climbed in, and started blasting the jailers who all ran away for cover. The rest of the group climbed in the top hatch and the pilots navigated the ship's ceiling to the cockpits and climbed into upside down pilot stations and seat-belted themselves in just as the TIEs showed up. The ship then took off and took a hit as it was righting itself, but once it did the TIEs came into the field of fire of the dorsal gunnery station and the pirate started shooting back at them. The last TIE chased them to space where they escaped to hyperspace on course to the Rebel base system in one of the ship's droid's memory.

That was the origin of Black Squad, and my love for this game which never ended. So raise your lum glasses for Black Squad and this game. I reached out to my players of that campaign and we shared some memories.

Play the game today or this week. If you can't do that, make a character or plan an adventure. If you can't do that, listen to some Star Wars music or watch a movie. Or just discuss Star Wars and/or this game on your favorite Star Wars RPG bulletin board. 30 years later, I'm thankful we are all still here. The Force is with us!

My son had played a handful of one-off mini-adventures and helped with some other playtesting, but today we celebrated my 30th anniversary by playing the first pre-campaign adventure of his campaign. His campaign will take place in the classic era but the first three pre-campaign adventures each take place during each of the three prequel trilogy films. For each adventure my son is playing a different character that will be an NPC in the proper campaign - These adventures are being used to introduce younger versions of multiple characters and tell a bit of their backstories.

In Episode I, he played a teenaged Gungan street punk who steals weapons for a Gungan crime boss and sells them to spacers near the Theed spaceport since his cousin Jar Jar Binks was banished bringing shame on the Binks family. Balatar Binks was arrested and put in a Theed jail right before the Trade Federation invasion, and after stewing there for a few days being fed by battle droid guards, he broke out with a human spacer cellmate during the Battle of Naboo. They battled some battle droids and repulsortanks on their way to the spaceport where the ship the spacer worked on was docked. The human's Wookiee captain allowed his crew member's new Gungan friend on the ship and they took off only to get tangled up in the Federation blockade until the control ship was destroyed and the droid fighters shooting at them shut down, allowing them to escape to hyperspace... The Gungan will eventually become the major domo of a crime lord in the Minos Sector.

I'm really impressed with my son. For an 8-year-old he did very well. He had a couple hilarious failures, like trying to con some battle droids, but he was also decently tactical in battles. He's learning the game system very quickly, and to boot he adds up pips faster than some adults I know. But most importantly, he had a blast! We had fun and he is really exited about playing more. And it was the first adventure I've ever ran that took place outside of the classic film era. It's been a great day!